


The exclusion of all else

by vigilantejam



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anesthesia, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood, Canon-Typical Cannibalism, Canonical Character Death, Choking, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face Slapping, Fire, Knives, Masochism, Memory Loss, Needles, Other, Sadism, Suicide, close enough?, no one has sex sorry, sorry to chas in particular, wound fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantejam/pseuds/vigilantejam
Summary: “I may not have fired the bullet, but I made that scar,” he drawled softly and slowly, and Charles turned to see the doctor sneering down his nose at him. “I'll do the same to you if you're not careful.”“I think I might enjoy that,” Charles said, quietly.“Are you calling my bluff, Mister Des Voeux?”“I do not believe you are bluffing, Doctor Stanley.”
Relationships: Charles Frederick Des Voeux & Dr Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 16
Kudos: 12





	The exclusion of all else

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic is set before a lot of bdsm language and practices were established, and is not meant to represent healthy play. charles willing enters situations where he knows stanley will do him harm, however he does not know specifics, and in one instance he cannot leave. heed the tags. i love you.
> 
> shout out to the cold hotties who brighten my every waking moment, and of course all my love and thanks to robokittens for the beta, for the patience, for stopping me going completely off the rails, and for building me new rails when i did anyway  
> [knife sounds]

* * *

Not too far from his collar and cuffs, Charles is a patchwork of pits and scars. The inner sides of his arms are scattered with light scores, crossing this way and that into chequered squares. The outsides display evidence of deeper cuts, longer lines, and where neat stitches brought him back together. Behind his ear he bears the identifying tattoo CFDV, and beside it a piece of the ear itself is missing. Around his neck are further nicks and scrapes, a dark pink crater sits just above his left collar-bone. The skin of his chest is warped and pulled tight with the shine of burns and scaldings. Starting at his ribs are round welts like thumbprints, uniform in size and shape, studded across his stomach and dug into his lower back. Beneath his trousers a ladder of ridges runs down the back of each thigh. There are many more besides.

_He did all of this._

He pulls his shirt over his head and lets it fall to the ground. It lies there crumpled in a heap, like others before it, discarded beside the fire and a full tub, on the boards by a bawdy house door, on a riverbank. He pinches and pulls the skin of his belly, loose where it used to be full. The light that spills over him is pale gold with the morning, and there's hours of it left. Stretching away as far as the shale.

He skims his fingers over his scars, recounting the topography to himself, making a map in this lost place. There's a story to each one. Stories he has never told anyone. Well, no one to tell now.

_He did all of this._

* * *

* * *

Everything was boring. A week ago, a day ago, the party had seemed like a thrill. George and Dundy had always come back with tales of scandal and misadventure, staving off their bottle-ache with tots from a pocket flask. Charles however was beginning to realise that those stories exclusively took place in the late evening, after ten or twelve hours of much more tedious stories in the company of stuffy whiskered gentlemen, disinterested wives, ludicrous pontificators, and people's _nieces_. He had managed to gather an acceptable enough audience of fragrant ladies and young lieutenants from the scraps available, but then Fitzjames had begun telling the one about the Chinese sniper, and the crowd who had been congratulating Charles on passing his exam and clapping warm hands to his shoulder not a minute before were gasping and cheering at the heroics of the delightfully charismatic Commander. Charles retreated to the other side of the room, under the pretence of greeting Captain Hastings, and loitered half behind a tall pot plant.

“Don't sulk, Mister Des Voeux,” the pot plant said. “God knows there will be other parties.”

Charles peered through the fronds and saw Doctor Stanley on the other side, his jaw set in a tight square, and chin held proud as he regarded the bustling chatter and gossip with eyelids at half mast.

“So many other, interminable parties,” he sighed. He hadn't looked at Charles once. “Although I'd advise against competitive oration in the future.”

“Anyone can get shot,” Charles said, wincing at how petulant his words sounded.

He watched Fitzjames hold up his finger and thumb in a circle that got bigger with each telling, and hold it to his ribs, his other arm gesticulating away.

“What's so special about that ugly scar anyway?”

Charles saw Stanley shift in the corner of his vision.

“I may not have fired the bullet, Mister Des Voeux, but I made that scar,” he drawled softly and slowly, and Charles turned to see the doctor sneering down his nose at him. “I consider it my finest work.”  
He gave a wry sort of snort at his own joke and then added, lower. “I'll do the same to you if you're not careful.”

Charles scoffed and threw the last half of his champagne down his throat. A memory surfaced of a hot day, not far back in Charles’ past, of Stanley’s ear against his sweat-sheened back, his large hand spread and sticking to his spine, of a doctor who pushed and pulled just a bit rougher than he needed to. Charles stepped out from behind the plant and straightened his tunic.

“I think I might enjoy that,” he said, quietly.

Stanley looked at him properly now, his eyes skimming up and down over Charles' body with a patrician scowl, and then he too stepped away from the wall and ducked his head close to Charles. “I'll put ten in you, and you'll hate it.”

Charles turned into the threat, certain they would have been nose to nose if Stanley hadn’t straightened back up. The party was suddenly a lot more interesting.

“Do it, and I won't,” he said, much more sure of himself.

It was Stanley's turn to scoff at him and Charles saw his hand clench into a fist by his side, just for a moment, before being released.

“Are you calling my bluff, Mister Des Voeux?”

“I do not believe you are bluffing, Doctor Stanley.”

The party came back then, as if for the past few seconds only he and Stanley had existed. The chatter and hum started crowding at him again, and he scowled back at the room.

“Where can we go?” Charles asked, the question falling out of him before he had thought about it.

“Now,” Stanley said, without inflecting for the question. His eyes swept around the crowd and then back to Charles, looking him over again.

“There is nothing,” Charles said, stepping closer. How he wanted to touch, just to run his fingers along the cuff at Stanley's wrist, but something held him. “Nothing at all here that interests me as much.”

Stanley's lips parted and his tongue flicked between them as he narrowed his eyes. Charles would hardly have called it interest or intent, but it was at least consideration. He felt his skin raise under the scrutiny. Stanley appeared to reach a conclusion and squared himself back to the room.

“Tomorrow morning, at the hospital. I have a room there.”

“Tomorrow.”

Stanley raised his hand in a half wave, and drew his mouth into a thin line. A grey-haired mutton-chopped man in blues began a slow approach and Charles was left with the distinct impression he had been dismissed.

“Tomorrow,” he said again, and winked up at Stanley as he slipped past in the direction of a valet with a tray of glasses.

He scooped up two flutes from the tray, downed one whole and cleared his throat. His eyes landed on George with, _oh god, a child_ , apparently doing an impression of a tiger or some such beast from their travels. Fitzjames was tossing his head back and laughing with his stolen audience, and Charles caught Dundy rolling his eyes behind him. Charles tipped his head in the direction of the cigar room and started weaving his way through the throng. He looked over his shoulder at Stanley, whose face was fixed in a forced smile that didn't reach his eyes, and which did not move from the old admiral.

*********

When he arrived at Stanley's door the next morning, Charles found it was slightly open. He entered without knocking and the doctor did not look up from whatever occupied him at his desk before speaking.

“Shirt off.”

Charles unbuttoned his coat and let it fall from his shoulders. The room had a chill that wound around him immediately, although not as bad as the wintery streets he walked to get here. Stanley sat behind a desk at the far side of the small room. Between there and the door the only furniture was a large wooden table, and a chair beside it. Charles folded his coat neatly and placed it on the table, followed by his waistcoat. As he loosened his stock the cool air curled about his neck in its place. Charles pulled his shirt over his head and stood, bare to the waist, his hands tucked into his armpits.

From where he sat, Stanley cast an eye over him.

“Are you still drunk?”

“No,” Charles answered.

“Have you eaten anything this morning?”

“No,” Charles said again and immediately felt regret yawning in his stomach. He considered the likelihood of there being any food in the room, and found the chances to be only marginally higher than those of it being offered to him.

Stanley carried on writing, pen scratching and rasping against the paper. Charles looked around the room again. Nothing of interest had appeared in the few minutes he had been standing there. The floor was stone grey and featureless, the walls were smooth and painted white. The table was aged and had one or two stains but appeared sturdy. The faint smell of soap and fresh linen was more notable for being the only scent to the room, completely cut off from the day-to-day stink of the lodgings, ships, and streets. There was one small high window through which a white sky and low morning sun were visible. Charles rocked on his feet and tipped his head back, stared upwards, following the little specks of dust that danced in the light. The ceiling too was flat and dull. No surface or wall had any adornment. He wondered if Stanley had occupied the room for five years or five minutes. Either seemed possible. Charles took a step closer to the table and picked at the edge, worried away at a corner until a splinter broke off and he dropped it to the pristine floor. He breathed in, slowly expanding his chest, and sighed.

Stanley scraped his chair back. The sound cut through the silence so suddenly that Charles almost jumped out of his skin. He snapped to attention instinctively, and gave a pleasant smile that lasted until Stanley strode past him and closed the door behind with a bang. He walked back to his desk just as abruptly, without even a glance at Charles. Charles watched him expectantly until he realised nothing more was forthcoming. His shoulders sagged back into a slouch and he started examining his fingernails. He found a loose thread of skin and pulled at it until it came free. He put his finger to his mouth and ran the tip of his tongue over the thin line, savouring the light sting.

“If there's a more convenient time,” he began.

This time when Stanley rose from his chair Charles didn't flinch. He didn't even brace himself as Stanley covered the ground between them and pulled an arm back. His fist drove hard into Charles' side, and Charles folded over as his breath left him in a low groan.

“I could always come ba-”

A second swing, from the right this time, a matching pair. Weight and counterweight. The force from Stanley's dominant hand, fingers curled up and ink-stained and moving under momentum, hit harder than the first. Charles staggered sideways, his chest hunched and heaving, and caught himself on the table, one arm wrapped around his stomach. He coughed out half a laugh and looked up to sneer at Stanley, only to find the doctor once again wasn't looking at him, but had turned his back and begun rolling up his sleeves.

“We shall have to work on your patience. And your manners,” he said, so quietly that Charles had to lean in to the sound.

“I've got very go-”

“Shut up.”

Stanley turned to face him, clenching his right hand into a fist and then flexing the fingers out. His forearm exposed, Charles watched the tendons and muscles move under the light skin. Stanley circled around him and Charles felt his heart sing under the attention. When he reappeared in front of Charles their eyes met for barely half a second before Stanley's palm smacked into Charles' chest. The sound clapped with a hollow reverberation around the blank walls, _like a butcher's shop_ , Charles thought and his breath caught as Stanley moved around and struck him again. Low on his back, his stomach, his chest, again and again. Each slap was sharp but not brutish, and left behind prickles in the shape of Stanley's hand. Charles held his tongue and held his head, he didn't look to where he knew a good pink glow would be rising across his body. He felt Stanley's fingers run bruise-rough over the scratches at the back of his shoulders, passing over them without comment.

“Turned into quite a party after all,” Charles offered, his mouth twisting into a smirk. “You should have stayed.”

Stanley fixed him with a withering look and blinked slowly.

“Let's be very clear about something,” he said wearily, as though each word cost him more effort than Charles was worth.

He stepped closer into Charles’ space. The cloth of his shirt sleeve was soft against Charles' bare chest and his shoulder pushed against Charles' chin. Charles held his ground as Stanley's fingers skirted down his stomach and over the front of his trousers. His hand cupped over Charles' prick with infuriating lightness. Charles pulled his lower lip between his teeth and fought the impulse to shift his hips into the touch.

“What you do with this in your own time is your own business, but in here,” Stanley paused until Charles met his eyes. “It is not a point of interest.”

Charles nodded and wished that the point were not so keen on proving itself. Stanley moved away and Charles swallowed down the whine building in his throat at the loss.

“Have a seat.”

Charles' legs shook a little as he lowered himself into the chair and took a moment to rearrange his trousers. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, closed his eyes, and attempted to regain his composure. He had had certain expectations about coming here this morning. So far none of them had been fulfilled, and he was not disappointed. He heard a scrape as Stanley picked up the chair from behind his desk, and opened his eyes to see it being placed opposite him. He watched Stanley walk away again, listened to the sounds of metal on metal, a drawer being opened and shut. Stanley returned with a small tray which he placed on the table beside them, and two lengths of thin rope.

He settled himself in the chair opposite Charles, his feet planted evenly and his back straight. Charles felt himself adjust to mirror him.

“Arms.”

“I'd rather you didn't tie me,” Charles said, aiming his voice at neither pleading nor demanding.

“I don't believe you were asked,” came Stanley's terse reply.

“Let me show you how good I can be,” Charles tried again.

“Start with doing what you're told.”

Charles laid his forearms on the smooth wooden arms of the chair. Stanley took one piece of rope and coiled it around three times and then stopped, one end of the cord in each hand, and looked at Charles.

“I suppose an esteemed _passing midshipman_ such as yourself could tie a better rope than I, Mister Des Voeux. How should I continue?”

Charles swallowed hard and looked at the rope wrapped around and pressing against his skin and then up at Stanley, who was waiting expectantly. The whole business was doing nothing to alleviate the hardship in his trousers.

“Loosen it up a bit,” he said, and the words came out in a croak.

Stanley gave him a dark look.

“Loosen it,” Charles repeated.

Stanley slackened the rope a little.

“Tuck the right line under all three, from top to bottom, right to left,” Charles said, and Stanley followed the instructions, one hand tight around Charles' arm as the other pushed the rope through.

“And the other side under all that, bottom to top, to the right.”

The rope dragged against Charles' arm and the fine hairs sprang up all around the binding.

“Now pull.”

Stanley pulled the ends of the rope and the whole knot tightened fast around Charles and the chair. Charles wriggled his arm experimentally and the rope didn't budge. He raised his eyebrows and smirked at Stanley, who had his head tilted to one side and was frowning at the rope.

“You did it upside down. Or rather, my way round,” Stanley said.

“Yes, well. You're the one tying it.”

“Hmm.”

Stanley pulled his chair over to the other arm and tied the same knot quickly and without further instruction, pulling it tighter until Charles hissed involuntarily at the pressure.

“There now, that's not so bad is it?” Stanley purred and Charles felt exactly as though he were being baited. Charles had been out of his skin restless since Stanley challenged him the night before, and it was still going to take at least the rest of the day to wear off. Stanley barely cared that he was in the room.

“It's fine,” Charles said, his jaw tight.

Stanley stretched to reach the tray from the table and placed it in his lap. He picked up the only instrument there, a small short-bladed knife.

“You have a choice. Should I cut the ropes? Or you?”

There was no rise or fall to his voice, no intonation or indication of which option interested him more.

“Do it,” Charles snapped, then huffed out a breath. If Stanley was so determined to be impenetrable, then Charles would be open, easy. He softened his eyes, and tempered the fire in his voice.

“Cut me. Please.”

The knife touched his hand at the knuckle of his little finger. A cold jolt shot through him as the sharp blade bit all the way to the bone in one movement. A creeping warmth followed as Stanley applied more pressure and began slicing away the loose skin. Charles let out a steady breath as the tension he had been holding in his shoulders ebbed and melted away.

By the third cut Charles was adrift. He saw himself from above, watched Stanley carving at the joint of each finger. He saw Stanley's empty hand pull back, and when it hit his face he was back in the chair. It was little more than a cuff to get his attention, but his head was floating.

“Stay here,” Stanley said as he turned back to his work.

The result was five neat little red circles, each the size of a pea, lined up and streaming blood down Charles' fingers. They were not deep, there was hardly much to cut into after all, but they would take a long time to heal, breaking open again and again in the course of Charles' work. Charles could already feel the itch and irritation of them.

“Not very dramatic,” he mumbled.

Stanley sighed and closed his hand over Charles' fingers, grinding and crushing the fresh wounds. Charles cried out at the sting and throb of it and Stanley’s grip only tightened.

“Commander Fitzjames earned his _dramatic_ scar through an act of bravery and heroism in service of his Queen and country. You have come simpering to me expecting handouts. I will give you your scars, Mister Des Voeux, but it will be on my terms. And perhaps next time you might consider keeping yourself in a condition that would tolerate such dramatics. I doubt Commander Fitzjames faced the Chinese with the previous night's debauchery hanging over his head and an empty stomach.”

Stanley released him and Charles did not have time to atone before he had moved over, and begun over again on his other hand. Again it wasn't long before the soft thrum along his skin and up his arms sent Charles away and another slap across his cheek called him back. Harder than before, but still the curve of Stanley's palm made more sound than it did sensation.

“Where are you going, when you do that?” Stanley asked, heavy with exasperation. “What does it achieve? All you are doing is shutting out the pain.”

He took the blade away from Charles' hand and dropped it with a clatter into the tray.

“I could simply stop, and you could leave. An easier solution don't you think? Why come here if you're going to push it all away?” 

Charles shook his head to try and clear it of the fog he had summoned. He squirmed in the chair, bristling and agitated, arguments dying on his tongue as he fought to earn the next cut, the one after.

“Hit me again,” he said through gritted teeth.

Stanley obliged. A harsh and rigid backhanded smack that cracked across Charles' jaw and snapped his mind to attention. Stanley’s hands were covered in blood too. Charles thought of the red smear that was no doubt streaked across his face, as pinpricks of light flickered in his eyes.

“If I may suggest a different tactic,” Stanley said coolly, picking up the knife again. “It might be more constructive for you to focus on the pain. Sit still, and feel it completely. To the exclusion of all else.”

* * *

Charles didn’t see the ropes again. The next time he was called to Stanley’s room it was aboard Erebus, docked and still in the process of fitting. The appointment was for a medical examination before the long voyage ahead. Charles had wondered, as he buttoned his waistcoat over exhilarating aches, how many prospective sailors were leaving the ship with more bruises than they had brought with them. He wondered, in between musters and meals and watches as they sailed north, in the long nights as the ice closed about them and they stopped moving, how many others were pulling extra layers of wool over the doctor’s work.

That first time, at home, and on the ship, in the times Stanley believed they were least likely to be disturbed, they always began the same. Charles stripped to the waist and waiting. Waiting for the racing of his mind to slow down. Waiting for Stanley’s attention to turn his way.

Charles was sitting on the examination table. His feet didn't reach the floor, and he swung his legs, crossed at the ankle, back and forth. His palms lay flat, tucked beneath his thighs, anticipation skittering along his nerves. The doctor took a turn about him, and when the touch came it was without warning, cold fingertips to his spine and Charles startled and yelped out a laugh.

“You ever think of warming up a bit first?”

Charles felt the air change behind him and clenched his jaw tight. He screwed his eyes closed and held the silence. Anything he could have said then, even an apology, would only have made it worse. Stanley sighed, not only a puff of air but a low grunt that Charles had not heard before. He turned away to the desk where his instruments were laid out, open for Charles to look over when he arrived, and began folding them back into the leather case.

“You're free to go.”

Charles didn't move. The doctor's voice was curt but there was still a chance. His persistence, and eagerness, had been rewarded before. But it was one thing to misstep in the middle of proceedings - when a man leaving, rather than entering, the sick bay pouring with blood would raise questions - and quite another to have done so before they had even begun.

“I require neither the pleasure of your company nor your wit, Mister Des Voeux. You are dismissed. Please, go about whatever frivolities better suit your mood.”

His voice dripped with boredom, and not a trace of hurt or jealousy. No anger that Charles might prefer to be elsewhere, only disdain for a specimen that did not hold still on the board.

“I'm ready, I’m ready. I'm sorry.”

Stanley's hand hovered over the collection of knives. It felt like being back at school all of a sudden. Before he had learned how to outwit and outrun, Charles had felt the sting of the birch more than once. The thick air of the master’s study was reproduced perfectly as Charles, both man and boy, had a suspended second to contemplate his punishment.

Stanley moved at once, selecting a tool and grasping it between his fingers as he swept his arm in a low arc that ended abruptly at the base of Charles' neck. The world stopped as Charles' eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped open, air catching in his throat as he felt the muscles tighten up. Stanley pulled back and the light caught a white flash of metal and the crimson shine of blood. Charles fell from the table, gasping, and dropped to his knees. The heavy crunch of his bones against the boards hardly registered next to the searing agony from the hole punched in his neck, and the rolling boil starting in his chest. 

As he knelt there, his hands scrabbling at his slippery skin, slick and dark as more of him was lost, he was struck not with regret that he had provoked the attack but that he could not see it. He couldn’t see where Stanley’s knife _had it even been a knife?_ had stuck, and he couldn’t see now, the wound that could be the end of him. He could only see Stanley standing over him, motionless, watching him with cruel eyes as he writhed in his own blood. Charles gulped and choked at him, his eyes pleading where his fear-swollen tongue could not. Stanley finally tossed a folded cloth down to him.

“Hold it down tight.”

Charles' arms were weak and his hands shook, but he got the cloth to his throat and pressed down as hard as he could. The blood soaked through almost immediately, his chest painted deep red. Stanley bent at the waist until they were eye to eye, close enough that Charles could see the sweat on the doctor's brow. He clamped a hand over Charles' and gripped hard. More than enough pressure to stay the blood. Almost enough to stay breath.

“Tight, I said.”

 _It hurts, it hurts_. Charles felt the room narrowing as the edges of his vision darkened, until it was just him, and Stanley crushing his neck, and the ocean of blood breaking through his fingers and crashing in waves around them.

“You'd die here if I didn't help you. Have you considered that?” Stanley's mouth almost touched his, a fleck of saliva flew off the plosive and landed on Charles' upper lip.

Charles shook his head.

“You will consider it now, and every time you cross my threshold, understood?”

Charles nodded.

Stanley took the cloth away, and when his hand came back to Charles' throat he pushed into the wound with his bare thumb. Charles felt the flesh opening up, sucking Stanley in. He could feel his pulse against the pressure of Stanley's thumb. He wanted to see, so desperately. He could picture it in perfect clarity, the neat and shining surgical edges between skin and the slick red wetness. Waiting and wanting and welcoming. _It's cold outside, come into the warm_. He was a martyr cleaved open and a painted whore laid bare. He groaned and his jaw fell slack. There was a light in Stanley’s eyes, and in his delirium Charles imagined he saw the thought form behind them. Stanley dragged his thumb from the wound. He lifted it the few inches to Charles' lips, and daubed blood all around them, and then pushed in. Charles pressed his tongue against the skin but that was as far as he dared. Stanley held his hand there for a moment, blood seeping between his splayed fingers, before he extracted himself and turned his attention back to the cut in Charles' neck.

Charles held the forceps as Stanley repaired the hole he had gouged. As the shock wore away it was replaced with a dull thud in his knees, his legs folded under him complaining against the deck, his toes as numb as if he’d been on the ice. The needle pinched and pulled. His eyes ached too, and each time he let them close he was back in that second with Stanley’s hand poised over his knives. The blood dried on Charles' chest and hands, crackling and itching as he tried to remain still and awake, but the wave of pain had sunk him. Stanley left the cloth and a bowl of warm water for him to clean himself. Charles only managed to smear streaks across his shoulders. The salt water bit and sank into the wound, stinging all the way through. His arms became heavy and he dropped his hands, sending the bowl and cloth falling. His head followed, and as he pitched forward Stanley caught him. Stanley held a cup to Charles’ lips and urged him to drink.

“You've lost a lot of blood,” he said, from somewhere underwater. “Perhaps you had better stay here. I'll tell the Captain you're off duty for at least a day.”

Stanley hauled Charles up. Charles dragged one newborn foot in front of the other, craving and resenting the strength in Stanley’s arms that held him and guided him to the berths. He was arranged under some blankets. Stanley gave him more water and retrieved the wash things. He cleaned Charles’ chest himself, and brushed his hair aside to make room for a damp cloth on his forehead. His hands were still bloody too, the dark red shapes conducting the air in front of Charles' face.

“Rest now,” Stanley said and Charles had already closed his eyes when he heard the sick bay door slide shut.

He shuffled his hand free of the bedding and drew it across his chest to his collar-bone, his fingertips seeking out the edge of the dressing and pushing beneath it. He traced over the fresh stitches, two neat lines like a button, and then dug his fingers in. The pain rose and crashed around him. He let himself be washed him to sleep.

* * *

The ether stung all the way down his throat and sent Charles spluttering and coughing before he could even reach for his buttons. Tears sprang in his eyes and as he undressed he began to feel light-headed. When Stanley eventually let him see the bottle, the label meant very little to him. He took another lungful of fumes from the cloth, and another before he had a chance to catch his breath. He started coughing all over again, his eyes streaming, and his ribs hurt so much he doubled over. Stanley pinched him, just above the hip, a playful tweak of skin that was as surprising in its source as its sensation. Charles reacted late. He squirmed out of the way, his arms that had been wrapped about his cramping stomach batting out after Stanley’s hand was long gone. Laughter bubbled up inside him. There were two of him. The one who could see what was happening and the one calling his body to reply to it. He knew it was too slow.

Stanley began with light taps about Charles’ body. It was unusually gentle, more like a massing and pulling of his muscles than the working over Charles had become accustomed to. It took Charles a second to tune into the sound and he realised that Stanley was smacking him hard, and not with his hands. It was his instrument case. Empty, probably, the worn leather folded into a baton. He was aiming at his recent work, swatting at the half-healed cuts and yellow bruises that marked Charles’ back. He could feel so little of it, his every nerve was vacant and numb. It felt like nothing and Charles laughed and coughed and thought if they weren’t frozen in he could throw himself into the water after Billy Orren after all. He was falling so far through a sea so cold it burned that he missed Stanley striking him across the face until he noticed his head had jerked to the side and he was back in the sick bay with his vision swimming.

Stanley stopped then and Charles he was walking on air as he climbed down from the table, _was it really so high up?_ , and folded into the chair in the corner. He sat slumped over, until Stanley threw his shirt at him and he pulled it on without thinking. It felt like a light breeze against his skin. He was given water and drank, and Stanley held him by the jaw and poured more water on his eyes. The spinning room slowed to the gentle undulation of a carousel, and Charles saw the bucket beside the chair. He couldn’t think why it made him giggle, but it did.

The cup of water in his hand was replaced with a cloth, and Stanley held his wrist and guided it to his face. The cloth, and whatever was on it, did not have the same styptic smell, and no longer made him cough. After only a few seconds he could feel his chest pounding uncomfortably. Stanley walked to the end of the room, to the door. Charles tried to watch but his attempt to see more than blurred shapes made him want to use the bucket.

“I am engaged at present, Mister Collins, perhaps you could return later. Unless it’s urgent?”

Charles didn’t hear the response but when Stanley came back to him he took the cloth away and pulled at Charles’ face to look around his eyes. He ducked his head and held his ear by Charles’ heart. Charles’ hands tightened where he gripped on to the chair. Stanley’s light hair stirred beneath Charles’ breath. Charles twitched his fingers, tried to raise a hand to touch, but it was too slow. The doctor had moved away.

“How do you feel?”

“Huhsmursafn,” Charles answered.

Stanley was formless and out of focus, a blurred shape that was either too near or too far to see clearly, but Charles felt the cloth close over his mouth and nose again.

“I’m afraid you’re going to miss the next bit.”

*********

When Charles came to his chest and back ached from the beating, and his head was pounding. He lay flat on the table, covered shoulder to toe in a light sheet and could not look over his body to where he knew he would be patched in red and pink, soon to bloom into purple and blue.

The light was soft and he was tempted to let himself fall back under, but for his parched mouth and the prickling of pain that started across his stomach. In the corner of his eye he could just make out the movement of shadows and the light familiar scratch of paper. Always writing something, or sketching. Always just out of sight.

“You were in and out,” Stanley said, sensing the change in Charles’ breath. Charles moved to sit up and fissures of pain ran through his arms.

“Don't move. How much do you remember? Please, be specific, and try not to use your pain as a clue.”

Charles lay back. It was true he could piece together some of what had happened by where and how he hurt. He tried to bring it to mind, tried to match an image, a sound, to any of the sensations. It was all a tangle.

“It's hard to separate what you've done before from what you've done today,” Charles paused, scraping his dry tongue over desert lips. “What I've thought about you doing.”

“Mmm.”

The sound neither encouraged nor forbid that particular train of thought. Charles did not turn his head in hopes of a clue from Stanley's expression. He knew well enough he wouldn't find one. Instead he breathed in slowly and gathered his thoughts.

“You hit my face,” Charles said, as a memory came to him in a flashing image, of Stanley holding his chin lightly with the edge of his forefinger and the pad of his thumb, the warmth and security of them before the knuckles of Stanley's other hand met his cheek.

“On the right side, only I didn’t feel it. I mean to say I remember you doing it, my head turned. But it didn't hurt.”

The soft meat of his cheek had been pushed against his teeth before the force of the slap swung his head to the side. Charles had heard the smack like far off thunder, kept his eyes forward, and seen everything slowed down. Charles had smiled, and Stanley had narrowed his eyes.

“How many times?”

“Once.”

“Mmm.”

Charles breathed deeply again and waited for anything else that might surface. 

“Back of my neck. Couldn’t see that one but I remember your breath in my ear, the sound,” he paused and swallowed. “Like the sea.”

His head became light again and the room listed from side to side. As if they really were still sailing.

“I might be sick.”

“Keep going.”

“Your hand,” Charles swallowed again, beating back the nausea. “Your hand was on my shoulder, holding me steady. It didn't hurt. It cut easily, cleanly, like I was made of clouds.”

His stomach heaved and sent splinters of pain through his torso. He turned his head limply to the side and spat out a loose string of bile and saliva.

“Can I tell you the things I don't remember?” Charles asked, dropping his head back against the exam table and closing his eyes against the slow swirling of the room.

“Mmm.”

“You cut my arms. Just scratches, little ones. My stomach, I don't know what that is. It's like bruises, but not like usual. That's in my chest too. It's tight.”

Charles took a deep breath in and expanded his lungs, stretching the skin over his chest and feeling light tugs.

“My legs hurt. Back of the thighs, right near my arse,” Charles smiled. These were the deepest cuts, in a place that would break open a few times before they were mended. They would sting and bleed and men might notice if he wasn't careful.

“Both legs. You must have moved me to do that, and undressed me. I don’t remember that at all.”

“Is that everything?” Stanley's voice was close. Charles had missed him moving across the room.

He opened his eyes and smiled up at the doctor standing over him. “I don’t think I’ll ever know.”

Stanley folded the sheet back and Charles pushed himself up onto his elbows. His forearms protested and he looked at the cuts he already knew were there, only they were much larger than he had thought; long red lines, already cleaned and clotted, scored deep over the muscles that held him up.

He looked down his body to see a star-shower of dots and trails across his stomach, woven around the hatching of old and pink scars. Some were already starting to bruise. It wasn't a pain he felt, particularly, but an awareness. As though something were living under his skin. It was less specific and intense than the cuts and gouges and beatings he had received, and it was crawling all over him and taking him over. He wondered how long it would last, or how long he could take it tormenting him before he begged Stanley to make it more.

Charles tucked his chin and looked along his torso to his chest, and his muscles twitched around the needle that was still pushed through the skin, long and curved where it hooked into the flesh above his sternum. Stanley reached towards him and pulled. Charles felt the tug and glide of the needle beneath the surface. Stanley flicked at it, the flat of his fingernail thudding against the raised ridge of skin stretched over the metal. Charles fought another wave of nausea but there was no pain until Stanley left the needle where it was and began tapping at the bruising older marks. How long had he been unconscious? How long had Stanley been working on all the holes across his stomach? 

Stanley selected a long, straight needle from the collection on the tray and Charles watched him thread it through the skin on his stomach, felt the bite of it puncturing his skin and then the smooth slide through and out again, chased by a tiny drop of blood. Over the centre of a square he had marked out Stanley paused, the needle angled straight down, and then pushed. It pierced deeper and with more clarity than any knife, but did not stir further recollections.

“Do you remember?”

Charles could see Stanley, working away while Charles sat with a slack-jawed grin, drifting around the edges of lucidity. But it wasn’t his sight. It was the view from the door, where someone else might have caught them. Stanley’s deft hands moving over Charles’ stomach, sewing up wounds that didn’t exist.

“No.”

* * *

“Do you need to be blindfolded, or can you keep your eyes closed?” Stanley asked shortly and held out a folded strip of cloth.

“I’ll keep them closed,” Charles answered, swallowing down the enquiry into whether those were his only options.

Stanley waited until Charles had folded away his uniform, and gestured to the table. His usual seat was clear and to the side the tray was placed with a single knife shining on it. It was a broader, larger blade than they had used before. Once he had allowed Charles a good look and a moment to settle himself, Stanley nodded once and Charles closed his eyes.

“If you open them,” Stanley's voice was quick and close, roaring like a fire in his ear. “We’re done for the day.”

“I’ll keep them closed,” Charles said again, holding himself up straighter.

“Listen. Wait. And feel.” Charles followed the sound as it circled around him.

The first cut was quick and deep, searing across the top of his arm. Charles jerked away from it, but made no sound and screwed his eyes shut tighter. He could picture Stanley slashing out from an arm's length, the long knife flashing through the air. The pain was bright and clear and his skin raised in goose-flesh around the trickle of blood he felt snaking down his arm.

Charles listened to Stanley move around him, and could feel the heat in the air when he stepped close. Seconds later Stanley’s hand was on his neck, warm and soothing until it tightened and dug into his flesh.

“It’s up to you to tell me to stop,” his voice was as firm as his grip. “You speak, or you tap here.” There was a rap of knuckles on the table beside Charles.

“Again, if you open your eyes we’re done. If you fall asleep we’re done.” Charles nodded as much as he could.

Stanley’s voice was close in a whisper. “And I’d like for you to stay a while.”

Charles worked to keep his head in the room. No chemicals and fumes disoriented him this time, but with his eyes closed and the air locked out he couldn’t breathe or blink through Stanley’s ministrations, only hold on to them as tightly as possible. Stanley’s fingers pressed into the soft part below his ears. The knife blade entered him again and again, slipping between his ribs, plunging into his thigh, raking across the back of his forearm. Each time without word or warning, each time making stars explode inside his eyes. Charles twitched and trembled until he could take no more and drummed the table with his fingers. The room came rushing back to him then, the pain suddenly hotter and bursting from his wounds. Every sound was booming around him. The snick of knife in the metal tray, the soft rustle of Stanley’s clothes. The creak of the ship in the ice, the men chattering just the other side of the door.

“Should I block them out?” Charles asked between greedy gulps of air.

“They’re as much a part of it as we are,” Stanley said.

It felt like hours. The intervals between each hold got shorter, until Stanley allowed Charles only one deep breath before closing his hand again. Charles had stopped trying to speak, had stopped tapping at the table. He poured himself into Stanley’s touch, and felt his windpipe restrict. He felt every point of contact. The flat of Stanley’s palm cupped around the front of his neck, the skin from his thumb to forefinger in a tight stretched line. The dig of each fingertip that pushed through his skin, and down his throat, curled around his lungs and squeezed. Charles drew back and Stanley’s hand relaxed but did not move away, while Charles’ pulse fluttered like a caged bird beneath it.

Eventually he was released and braced himself on his arms. With his hands by his thighs, his fingers curled and gripping the edge of the table, he felt the air ghost over the blood drying on his skin. He panted through bared teeth and imagined how pleased Stanley must look, on the other side of his closed eyes.

“How is it you’ve never been lashed?” Stanley’s fingers traced over Charles’ back, no longer the pristine and virgin flesh it had been when they met, but lacking the distinctive marks of the cat.

“I would never offend the articles, sir,” Charles replied, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.

The clip round the head was expected, and not hard enough to wipe the smile from Charles’ face.

“I would never get _caught_ offending the articles,” he amended.

“Clever boy.”

There were sounds behind him. Soft and muffled, unnerving in the deliberate attempt being made to mask them. Expectation and apprehension both worked their way into Charles’ stomach before there was a hiss through the air and whack to the table. Charles felt the wood shiver underneath him.

“How many lashes do you suppose you’ve avoided?”

“That would depend on the clemency of my captain,” Charles said, fighting to keep his voice steady over the racing of his heart.

“It wouldn't work very well, would it? I imagine whoever prescribed and delivered the punishment would be very disappointed with your lack of reaction.”

There was a long pause. A held moment in which Charles wondered if the lash would come at all, and was struck with the knowledge he would be disappointed if it didn’t.

There was the sound. The air cut again, and the cat o’ nines landed with a crack and white heat across Charles’ back. His eyes almost flew open, but he held them as tight as he held his tongue. 

It was intense and savage and completely unlike anything the considered and clinical the doctor had done to him before. Charles could feel that his skin wasn’t split. There was blistering pain but no weeping trickle of blood. _The first lash doesn’t bleed_. A million pockets opened up, some small tears on the surface, but it was only being whipped over and over again that ripped open jagged lines along a man’s back. He had been to lashings before, he had seen fascinated men and righteous men become repulsed and look away. At the first crack of the cat Charles felt and understood the primal kind of pain that could reduce a man to his component parts. Shame, fear, and obedience. Spite, desire, and hope. Every measure and contradiction was as distinct as each tail of the whip, coming down on him in a single strike. It was exhilarating. And he knew that while he held his tongue for Stanley, he would thrash and scream for an audience assembled on the deck until their piss ran into their boots.  
There were no more lashes. This one, if it scarred at all, would do so in a thick smudgy swipe. Not the gnarled, twisted mess that would speak of any number of indiscretions, just one broad brush-stroke with no easy explanation. 

“Open your eyes.”

Stanley stood to the side, watching Charles. Charles watched him back as once again Stanley’s hand closed around the front of his neck. In the corner of his eye he could see Stanley’s other hand was gripped just as tightly around the handle of the long knife. They held each other's eyes as the pain started to burn in Charles' lungs. It was something else, to be able to see. Charles felt himself anchored in Stanley’s gaze. He knew if his eyes had been closed they would have stopped by now, but there was a challenge there, to go further, to find the limit, and it was as good as oxygen. Stanley’s nostrils flared as his strangle hold tightened. This time Charles didn't have to move. He only raised an eyebrow and crooked the corner of his mouth into a snarl. As his eyes began to slip out of focus, Stanley held on until Charles at his last waking moment whispered:

“Now.”

As he tipped forward Stanley held him up by the throat and drew the knife deep across Charles’ stomach. His hand slackened and Charles sucked down a great lungful of air. The sensations that had been melting away came back brighter. The red hot pain of the wound lit up his brain at the same time as the oxygen, and his head spun as he gulped down breath after breath. He blinked and blinked and between flashes of darkness he saw Stanley draw away, white knuckles filling with colour again.

* * *

Charles didn’t know how long he had been waiting. It was long enough that he started when Stanley stood up from his desk, and walked over to where Charles was standing. Stanley looked at the neat stack of clothes Charles had placed on the examination table, and began to remove his own stock. He pulled out the knot and unwound the fabric, and laid it over Charles’ things. His hands returned to his collar, where he unfastened two buttons and opened out his shirt. At the sight of Stanley’s exposed neck, Charles felt his eyes widen, he could feel the weight of his tongue in his mouth, and the quickening rise and fall of his chest. Stanley did not undress further. Instead he turned back to his desk and beckoned Charles over. Sitting in his chair, he waited until Charles was within reach and hooked a finger into the waistband of his trousers, and pulled him closer. Charles stopped when their knees bumped together. He raised an eyebrow in question and got a small nod in return. Charles parted his legs and stepped forward, the inside of each knee brushing along the doctor’s legs. He stood over Stanley, hips squared to shoulders, dizzy with the proximity, and waited.

“Please,” Stanley said, his voice light. “Have a seat.”

Charles paused for a moment and then lowered himself into Stanley’s lap. They were inches apart, chest to chest and eye to eye, a short smile tugging at the edges of Stanley’s mouth. 

“This is unusual,” Charles said.

“Sit comfortably,” Stanley said. “And don't worry about holding your weight up, I'm not some flimsy maiden. I don’t want your concentration divided.”

Stanley’s leather instrument case lay open on his desk. He leaned forward a little, narrowing the distance between them further, and reached for a knife. He straightened up and held it out for Charles to take. The handle sat between Charles’ fingers like a pencil, delicate and sturdy at the same time. The blade was long and thin, and as Charles turned it in the light he could see, sharp along both edges. It could probably have gone straight through Stanley’s neck and out the other side.

“This is a catling. I imagine there are a few times things haven't gone your way and thoughts have crossed your mind. And you're quick,” Stanley paused, his eyes only on Charles and not the knife. “I don't think I could stop you.”

“I don't know,” Charles brought the blade up and cut experimentally through the air between them. “Reckon you'd spot it before I even moved.”

“Then let's give you a little less distance to cover.”

Stanley took Charles by the hand and drew him close until the catling was a breath away from touching his neck. His fingertips brushed along the pulse point in Charles’ wrist and over the bone and then moved away. Stanley held his hands up and, with a slant of his eyebrow and dramatic gesture, he folded his arms behind his back. With his shoulders square and chest out, his shirt gaped open further. Charles looked from the line of Stanley’s collar-bone up to his thin lips still curved in a smile, to his eyes, not as dull and distant as they often were, but bright, attentive, and trained on him.

“What would you do to me, Charles?”

The sound of his name from Stanley’s mouth hummed through Charles’ body. He felt full with the attention. He knew his face gave him away, the way he tensed gave him away, his thighs and Stanley’s pressed tight together under his weight. He said nothing. Stanley’s face remained impassive. Charles licked his lips and watched Stanley’s eyes track the movement of his tongue, and fall to the bob of his throat when he swallowed. _That would be the time to do it_ , Charles thought, but the next time he swallowed Stanley’s eyes stayed on his.

What Charles would do had nothing to do with the knife in his hand, and everything to do with Stanley’s skin underneath it. _Devour_ , his mind supplied. Charles felt as bare as Stanley’s throat, one small movement away from falling open. Charles’ gaze ran back down the line he had traced from Stanley’s eyes and down along his cheek dusted with blunt sandy hairs, his mouth, down his neck. The soft light caught on something, a white line, paper thin and barely raised, running parallel to his jaw. Always covered by stocks and collars, it was only visible this close, with this much time and attention. It set Charles alight. He wanted to fasten his mouth over it, taste it, learn its shape with his tongue, and claim it back from whoever made it.

He realised suddenly that although he had never seen Stanley beyond his forearms and face, he had never thought about what was underneath, how much they could have in common. Forget the catling. Would Stanley stop him if he dropped his hands to his waistcoat, and began to undo him? Could he run his scar-bitten fingers over Stanley’s skin like the doctor had done to him so many times, and learn the outsides and insides of him? _Not today_. The rules had never been spoken out loud, but Charles knew this wasn’t in them. Manners and patience, the doctor ordered. The possibility of more to come. _Don’t spoil your appetite_.

He brought his focus back, and realised that he had lost himself in Stanley’s skin, that they were breathing in time, and he didn’t know how long they had been there. He looked back up to Stanley’s eyes, to find them waiting for him. Charles slowly moved the blade until he felt the pressure of skin beneath it and stopped.

“Good,” Stanley said finally, and took the catling back. “That's very good, Charles.”

Charles could feel the moment slipping out of his grasp and faltered. He reached out and touched Stanley's scar. It was the briefest lightest contact that sent a shock through him and he pulled his hand back quickly. He felt Stanley bristle under him for a second, and then relax. However disappointed he was at Charles for touching without permission, it was not enough to throw him from the room. He even lifted his chin a little and allowed Charles another look.

“I didn't think you had any,” Charles said, and it came out a whisper.

“No? Not everyone is as well behaved as you.”

“Doesn't look like he meant it.”

“Oh, he meant it, but you were right. I saw it coming.”

“Where is he now?”

There was a pause and Stanley’s eyes darkened. The last of his tolerance had been siphoned off.

“That's enough for today, Mister Des Voeux. Get off.”

“My legs are dead.”

“How unfortunate for you.”

Stanley ran his wide hands up Charles’ ribs and held him firmly under his armpits. He stood up, lifting Charles with him and set him on his feet. Charles’ legs gave out from under him and he landed in a happy heap. Stanley cuffed him round the head as he slipped past him to retrieve his stock, buttoning his collar as he went.

* * *

* * *

The cold surrounds him, but it won't take him.

The shale under his hands and under his cheek is hard and jagged. He is laying on a hundred headstones. The exhaustion, and his last shred of hope, left him with his tears. The emptiness that faces him now brings both freedom and focus. His gut is still tight with cramps. Time, and the slow swing of the sun, are not on his side. He takes stock. He has with him one rifle, which he does not care to shoot again; one knife, purloined on receiving the order to walk out; one box of matches, of which three remain. He loops his arms through his leather braces and they swing about his knees. He unwinds the shirt from his head and removes his waistcoat. He collects some large stones and arranges them in a small circle, and wads up the clothes in the centre. In the lee of his body he lights the first match. It fades before the clothes take, a thin twist of grey vanishing immediately into the air. He hunkers down closer and the second attempt fares better. He tucks the smouldering sleeve into the rest of the bundle and blows gently at it until the smoke thickens. He waits. He removes his boots, and looks at his red and black ruined feet, counts his toes. When the flames begin to cut through the cloth, he stands. He pulls his shirt over his head and lets it fall to the ground. He steps into the pyre.

He skims his fingers over his scars and he’s miles away and a lifetime ago.

In their first winter, Stanley handed him a small glass of brandy with half a lime in it.

“Don't get scurvy or you'll fall apart like a rag-doll.” 

He smiled when he said it, as though he wouldn't mind so much. It felt proprietary. That even when he was not around, Charles would have to take care of his work.

_He did all of this._

After they ate Billy Gibson, Charles returned to the tent rather than sit in silence with the others. He took the catling from its hidden place, unwrapped the cloth, and dug out his scar. Stanley liked to return to it, that wound at Charles’ clavicle. He would cut it open time and time again until scar grew on scar as he molded it into a knotted lump under Charles’ collar. Charles dug it out with his stolen knife and made his lips red with blood as he ate the meat that was made not of muscle but of pain.

He crooks his fingers around the bulb of his shoulder and slips his thumb into the pit over his collar-bone that has refused to heal since he reopened it. He pushes, feels, holds it.

After he clipped the life out of Tom Hartnell and gave Crozier the butt of his rifle for the trouble, Charles again retreated, unable to breathe. As he gasped and gulped he thought if he had only known, known as well as Stanley, he might have stayed at the carnivale.

He stretches his other arm out wide, the catling gripped in his fist. The fire licks around his thighs and climbs and he feels that too.

After surviving the boats and the ice, the hunger and the beast, the poison and the lies, he hadn’t given much thought to not surviving. Surviving was an instinct and a habit, unquestioned and certain.

It is odd then, to close his eyes, to listen to the gentle thrum of the flames, to smell the smoke and the fat and the meat, to embrace the pain, and take one last burning breath.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> once again i made [a terrible joke in response to terror_exe](https://twitter.com/ihavecake/status/1271174013809811458) and it got out of hand. [siken bot can also fuck off](https://twitter.com/sikenpoems/status/1278860394019389440).
> 
> i also made [a mini playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6YLR2b2swci2esgv873lnx?si=-CGbmS_qRaWK9tMdyYso_Q) because charles des voeux has incredible new wave energy and i owe him that much

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [and all this devotion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691290) by [robokittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens/pseuds/robokittens)




End file.
